Ecosystem restoration has the potential to address multiple global challenges, including biodiversity declines, climate change, and local pollution. In recognition of this, the United Nations has declared 2021-2030 as the Decade on Restoration – an effort to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. Restoration projects are complex and often must be done with limited budgets and labor. Frequently, long-term monitoring of restoration outcomes falls by the wayside. As a result, understanding restoration outcomes and assessing success can be difficult. In this symposium, we bring together early career ecologists who are using a variety of novel approaches to monitor and evaluate restoration outcomes across multiple ecosystems. Speakers will share specific challenges and solutions to accessing and establishing early colonizing species for ecosystem restorations in both terrestrial and marine environments. The symposium will synthesize similarities around best practices for working within the constraints of degraded systems and initial project conditions to optimize restoration outcomes. We will also address unique aspects of these various approaches and ecosystems. A key goal for the discussion is to elevate ways for ecosystem monitoring to be integrated into restoration projects and research with consideration for the realities of restoration work. Policy makers have bought into restoration, we must be able to deliver robust results.